Tag: FEE

DonorSee is a realistically hopeful app. Glyer believes in the eagerness of people to help one another and uses the power of real-time video to make that happen. In that way, it relies on the same goodwill that underlies the sharing economy—trust in each other, and faith that continuous feedback loops will reward good, honest work.

But DonorSee is also a reaction to the grossly ineffective and corrupt “big charity” model that has the giving industry stuck in the twentieth century. While we can tip our Uber drivers directly and in real-time, we send aid to hurricane victims through massive, archaic organizations—thousands of employees, some paid millions annually, who all sit together in a neighborhood of limestone buildings just north of Capitol Hill.

Gret Glyer (founded DonorSee) is what I like to call a “doer.” He’s someone who’s seen a problem and is actually fixing it. Not trying to fix it. Not explaining how it should be fixed. Not raising awareness so that, somewhere, someday, something might be done about it by someone. He is actively solving the problem every day.

This always involves starting a business. A venture. A risk-laden enterprise that requires a big chunk of your time and energy. Many simply don’t care enough to risk this much, even for causes they claim to support—noble causes that everyone can agree on. Frankly, I know almost no one who walks the walk like this.

Reminds me of something I read on Medium the other day—an excerpt from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s new book, Skin in the Game:

Finally, when young people who “want to help mankind” come to me, asking: “What should I do? I want to reduce poverty, save the world” and similar noble aspirations at the macro-level. My suggestion is:

1) never engage in virtue signaling;

2) never engage in rent seeking;

3) you must start a business. Take risks, start a business.

Yes, take risk, and if you get rich (what is optional) spend your money generously on others. We need people to take (bounded) risks. The entire idea is to move these kids away from the macro, away from abstract universal aims, that social engineering that bring tail risks to society. Doing business will always help; institutions may help but they are equally likely to harm (I am being optimistic; I am certain that except for a few most do end up harming).

Risk is the highest virtue.

“Business” is not some option for your life. A career choice you may or may not make. It is life, if you intend to accomplish anything lasting, anything worthwhile.

Take a risk. Start a business. Model Glyer—he lived for three years with the world’s poorest people in Malawi. Came back to the US and did exactly the thing he knew needed to be done to help the people in Malawi, and elsewhere, who lack the most basic provisions of life. It involved taking risk and starting a business, not petitioning others to fund an unsustainable charity simply because they ought to. You ought, as he did, to consider not just what’s right, but reality.

What will work? What will solve the problem you think really needs to be solved? Ask this question in a vacuum at first—ignore context or what other people tell you they are trying to do about it (because probably what they’re doing isn’t working if you still see a big problem there). Find your answer, and do that thing. Adjust your circumstances accordingly.

You’ve probably been taught to do things the other way around. Find the path of least resistance, given your context and what others are doing, then make your decision. That’s a fast track to nothing.